


These I Remember

by opalmatrix



Category: Gentlemen of the Road - Michael Chabon
Genre: Chance Meetings, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen, Memories, Strangers, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29642115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/pseuds/opalmatrix
Summary: Zelikman's errand leads to painful memories and an unexpected meeting.
Kudos: 2
Collections: Purimgifts 2021





	These I Remember

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seekingferret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/gifts).



> Zelikman gets a surprise too. Prompts: It's about an adventurer and should include a ring. Also use the sentence '"Aren't you afraid?" + "Memory's a winding path, shining in the rain" (from "One Green Hill" by the Oysterband) + Psalm 42:2-6 - These things I remember.

The old physician had told Zelikman that he would not sell opium at the market, but that he would be glad to welcome his fellow physician (so Zelikman had presented himself) at sunset in his home and surgery by Herod's Gate. By asking, Zelikman found the house quite easily, but he was kept on the doorstep while the clouds overhead thickened and darkened. The first raindrops were falling when at last the aging doorkeeper let Zelikman enter the house. The musty warmth of the house, redolent with medicinal plants and preparation, was parted by the gust of rain-damp air that came with the guest.

"May Allah grant us beneficial rain!" exclaimed the old doctor, who was seated on the floor at a low worktable as Zelikman came to the door of his dispensary. Zelikman responded automatically, in the holy tongue: "Good are You, and good You do, Source of living water."

The physician frowned and pulled at his beard. "A Jew! I thought you were a Frank."

Zelikman stopped there on the doorway, conscious of the doorkeeper with his iron-shod staff waiting behind. "A man may be both," Zelikman said.

The old man frowned under forbidding brows, then shrugged and called to the doorman. "Yasin! Have Halawa bring mint drink!" He waved to a cushion before the table. "Sit, sit."

Zelikman sat and did his best to chat amiably with the garrulous doctor. A middle-aged maidservant brought the sweet mint drink and a dish of salted, spiced pistachios. In all, more than an hour passed by the time Zelikman's host was satisfied and the transaction of gold for opium completed. The doctor, pleased by Zelikman's formula for wound ointment, added a block of pressed bhang. "The best, the most potent," said the old man, patting it lovingly before wrapping it in a piece of silk and sealking it with wax. The grim doorkeeper showed Zelikman out.

The rain had stopped for the most part, and Zelikman peered about the darkened Muslim Quarter. Few of the houses had lamps of any kind at their doorways, but the paving stones of the street shone with damp where he could see them. He took his direction from the wall of the inner city and the tower of the gate and started to walk down the gentle slope. The paving stones and the smell of the rain in the night took him back to Regensberg. The walls of the houses and closed shops loomed over him. He meant to watch his feet, but what he was seeing was a thousand leagues from Jerusalem. His mother's face, his sisters' smiles, the crumpled bodies on the pavement.

"Oy, _stop!_ Not one step more!"

A woman's voice, in Arabic, from behind him. His feet did take that one step more, he grabbed for his knife, and he felt a slickness under the sole of his boot that threatened a fall. He stopped then, knees loose, trying to steady his breathing. "Blessed be the Holy Name," he muttered.

"Good, you stopped. Look, it rained, right? Under the streets is the spring that feeds Siloam, and when it rains hard, up the water comes, bringing clay. As slick as oil. You want to watch your steps, golden boy."

Zelikman stepped back, carefully, and turned to look. She was a shadowy figure, but although wrapped in the typical voluminous mantel of a woman of the region outside the home, she wore no veil, and the patterned cloth wrapped about her head left most of her neck bare. She was not young, and she was alone. It was this that made him say, "Aren't you afraid?"

"Of what? This street, that I have known all my life? The men hereabouts, whose names I know likewise? You, the sojourner from the faraway land of ice, who nevertheless calls upon the Holy Name?"

He dropped his hand from the blade. "You have good ears," he said in the holy tongue.

"I thank you, young brother! Are you in Jerusalem on business?"

He thought about that. "Perhaps. But mainly, my partner and I had a notion to see the holy land of our people."

"And having seen it, what do you think?"

"We've been here scarcely two days, so I hardly know."

She grinned, showing crooked teeth. "Two days, and tomorrow is the Sabbath, I think you and the partner should come to our house for supper." She gestured down the street, the way he had been walking; she had a gold ring on her hand. "I will show you."

"You have only just met me, and you haven't met my partner at all!" he protested. "What will your husband say?"

"That it's a blessing to have guests for the Sabbath, that's what he'll say. We used to be a household of seven, but with the children grown, there are only three of us." She walked past him, keeping to the opposite side of the street. "Come, follow in my footsteps, and keep your thoughts in the present moment. I'll show you the house, but if you should have trouble finding it again before sunset tomorrow, just ask for Raysa and Yaqub's house. Ask anyone."


End file.
